[Jamestown1630]

This month: Thai Food! Especially Duck and Basil.

I wish everyone a peaceful and prosperous New Year, culminating in a Great Election. (We can debate after the fact whether Trump’s first or second electoral triumph is the ‘Best Election Evah’!)

-JT

[Bullish]

I eat Thai food as much as possible. It’s heavenly.

[Biggirl]

Wonderful presentation!

Was he the same Thailand emperor that was the basis for the musical “The King and I”?

Yes, I did have Thai food. It can be spicy.

[doorgunner69]

I try Thai resipes now and then, but it rarely approcahes a good restaurant quality.

When my wife brings home several take out dishes, I always remark, maybe I could duplicate one of them, but all of them for dinner? Love me some spicy hot Pad Thai noodles.

I always want “Thai hot” , but the wife dials back the order.

[noexcuses]

Love Thai! Thank you so much...and wishing you a wonderful New Year!

[ClearCase_guy]

I had Thai food (take-out) on Christmas Eve, I had duck confit last night (at a restaurant) but I’m making Indian butter chicken tonight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcrDpvLSQZc).

I’m sort of dancing around the Thai duck with basil.

[coaster123]

I've never had a duck thawing in my fridge before but I do now. Never ever cooked one but plan to in a few days.

I'm thinking I'll puree the whole bird and then boil hard. But I'm open to learn from the experienced. Any tips?

[Deplorable American1776]

Thanks for the ping on the monthly recipes thread. Going to try some...

[mplsconservative]

If you’re ever in the Twin Cities, Lat 14 is a must try simply for their basil wings.

Thai dry rub, very lightly coated in tempura batter wings and pickled jalapenos along with ‘fried to a crisp’ Thai basil.

I dream about those babies! :)

Their mango-lada with beads of habanero oil might have had something to do with that! Can you tell I love spice?

https://www.lat14.com/eat

[Dragonfly]

We love Thai food and have been to Thailand many times when we lived in Asia. We're never tired of it. There are some good and authentic Thai restaurants in our area here (in the US), fortunately.

Thank you for your inspiring monthly cooking threads. There's always something new to learn for me. Happy New Year!

[Qiviut]

This is sort of off-topic and some of you will be thinking “how stupid can you be” when you read it, but I’m so happy with my “seeing the light” recently that I’m posting it anyway!!

We have trashed our ADC (Automatic Drip Coffee) makers. Why in the heck it didn’t occur to me to do it sooner, I have no idea. Friday, we got out my mom’s “vintage” Corningware percolator & made coffee in it .... Best.Coffee.Ever. Seriously - even mom was saying “Wow - this is the best cup of coffee I’ve had in ... I can’t remember when!”

So, it’s not just that the coffee tastes terrific. Somebody was talking about coffee makers & BPAs. Unless your coffee maker says “BPA free”, you’re probably getting some ‘nice’ plastic toxins as the boiling hot water goes over plastic every day. The other issue is the water reservoir - I cannot clean mine with vinegar every day & I’m sure most folks tend to be lax as far as running vinegar through at least monthly. The damp reservoir is a great place for growing things ... things you do not want in your coffee!

My experience - Friday was the first ‘percolator’ coffee day and shockingly (not exaggerating here), my low-grade allergy symptoms had disappeared by the end of the day. I am super sensitive to mold/mildew and was probably getting a good dose in my coffee every morning. Also, I’ve been having issues with morning hives ... before eating (so it’s not food allergy), but after coffee (ruh roh!). I’ve been keeping the hives more or less semi-controlled using Vit. D (there’s a study on it for ‘chronic urticaria’), but I suspect no more ‘moldy’ coffee will make a great difference & I am feeling better overall already.

So Merry Christmas to me - bought myself a stainless steel percolator (mom & I have trouble ‘sharing’ so I needed my own) which arrived Saturday. I’m thoroughly enjoying the coffee, having a super clean pot, & I even enjoy the perking sound - quite nostalgic since my mom had her old Corningware back when I was a ‘kid’. It’s fast, too - mom’s brews in 6 minutes & my new one is even faster. It appears that the New Year will be off to a good start!

[bgill]

I got a couple of old-ish cookbooks for Christmas. One, a locally published one from the ‘80s has some questionable recipes such as veal creme, squirts (!), mystery cheese and TV soup. And that’s just within the first few pages.

And Captain Obvious recipes like cream soup ingredients = canned cream soup, dips = dry dip mix and sour cream, croutons = packaged croutons, instant hot cocoa mix = packaged hot chocolate mix and hot rolls = heated packaged rolls.

[nopardons]

I’ve only had Thai food 3 times, but do see my duck a l’orange and Montmorency at post #45. :-)

[pugmama]

Happy New year to everyone!

This is a good recipe to make for a crowd. You add the meatballs at the end.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/01/slow-cooker-thai-chicken-meatball-recipe.html

[Diana in Wisconsin]